Stunning Silence 1.2.7 Released + Musings
Version 1.2.7 of my popular Stunning Silence WordPress theme has been released. This update packs a few changes that will help you with your blog, including functionality to integrate with WordPress 3.0’s new Menu feature, as well as a few aesthetic changes.
This version also marks an important moment: WordPress theme servers indicate over ten thousand users have downloaded my theme. I’m immensely proud of this number as it marks the WordPress community’s trust in me, as well as a testament to my skill. I never, in my wildest imaginations, ever imagined Stunning Silence would be this popular.
The Ode to User Interfaces
I recently visited a university campus that was absolutely captivating. I really loved the architecture, the school grounds, even the placement of the buildings. I found it beautiful how all of the classrooms were all automated and the professor could – with a touch of his finger – turn off the lights or deploy the projector screen, all through a touch screen built into his desk.
There was one thing I didn’t like, however: the staircases. Rather, not the staircases themselves, but the signs posted inside of them. For all the marvel and grandeur of design everything else was, the signs that indicated what floor a person was on were created remarkably without thought. It completely killed the experience.
I’ve been working on some things
(Look for this to come out soon. Trust me – it’s going to be awesome.)
HTML5 & Flash: This is innovation at its best
If you’ve had the opportunity to follow the debates on Flash vs. HTML5 (Canvas, etc), you might agree with me on how incredibly articulated the arguments are. People speak out on everything – whether Flash should be preserved, whether Canvas should rule – and I’m very happy about it.
Innovation at its best is discussion. Discussion on how to make it better, discussion on how to improve it, discussions in general tend to be a good thing. It means that people are talking, and most of the time, when people talk, problems get solved.
As a by-stander, it’s very hard to argue about the argument, because it’s going to be better in the long run – the web is going to be better. How we come about achieving that “better”, however, is a different story. Both involve standardizing something, whether it’s Flash or Canvas – HTML5 just happens to be built into the browser.
Culrr: a color picker by Brandon Wang
Colors are such a crucial part of any design piece, and what I’ve often found is that the selection of such colors play a very important part. Therefore, it makes sense to have a very good color picker.
Harnessing the power of Steven Witten’s Farbtastic (the actual color picker you see) and then some of my own code, I’ve created culrr, which lets you see the color you’ve chosen on a very large scale.
Affyn (Previously Affinity) Released: Version 0.9 [Updated With Download Link]
Affyn’s been released! Previously Affinity, this theme has gone a name change after an unfortunate naming collision. Affyn is a free WordPress theme with a clean yet grunge design, a modular form of widget layout that allows for mason-like layout in the footer, and other great features that make it a great WordPress theme.
Stunning Silence 1.2.6 Released
After many confused users questioning my decision to default the Cufon headers to on, I have decided to push an update changing this default setting to off. I’ve also modified a few things because I didn’t find them appealing. A list of what’s changed is below.
Affinity is Almost Here: More Info
Working late the night before Thanksgiving, I wanted to release Affinity on Thanksgiving Day. It featured grunge touches without losing its elegance, focusing all the attention on your content. But it’s not here.
4 Ways to Learn Anything (Including Web Design)
How did you learn web design? For years, I’ve been asked this question. After being featured on Lifehacker, I’ve received an influx of these questions.
I have developed an unspoken method of learning that has helped me learn six programming languages and hundreds of applications like InDesign or Photoshop.
With these tips, you should be able to learn anything. Most are programming-focused, but you should find that they work with many things in life. In addition, you’ll be able to gain knowledge quickly and with results.
Without further ado, I present my methods.
A New Way to Order CSS Rules
Here’s a new way to order your CSS rules: instead of ordering CSS rules alphabetically, try ordering them contextually. By ordering this way you save yourself the hassle of going through your alphabetical list, humping from W for width to H for height when they should be together.
- Sizing (width, height)
- Positioning (position, z-index, float)
- Padding and Margins (padding, margin)
- Typography (font, line-height, text-decoration)
- Color, Background, Opacity (color, background, opacity)
- Borders (border)
- Content Specific Settings (list-style)
- Usability Hacks* (text-indent)
- Miscellaneous
Take the Time to Design (Please)
Good design is timeless and just simply so important. When you visit websites like CNN.com or a design blog, you simply don’t realize how important the role of the design is. It is the unspoken warrior, not overtaking your content but rather pushing it forward.
Recently GeoCities shut down, and a portion of the Internet shut down with it. It represents the loss of millions of table-based websites, the final whisper of even more websites with bad graphics and cheesy animations.
So one would think that in this age, for a major company or a major website to not hire a decent designer, not take the time to design, not take the time to think, it would be insanity, would it? Akin to selling Lamborghinis from behind a McDonalds?
So why is it, that as a student, I have to deal with bad design all the time? It’s one thing to see WordArt in a fellow classmate’s PowerPoint (I spoke out on that), but to see this on a major websites?
That’s ridiculous, and it makes me mad.
When Outsourcing Bites Back
Recently I visited my own literature blog soul log I was completely shocked when a popup came up, advertising a get-rich-quick website, featuring a very fat person marveling at how he made $14,596 at home using Google, complete with a stupid narration and photographs of fake checks.
soul log does not employ any sort of advertising. I experimented with Google Adsense as well as networks like Entrecard but they never really worked out. I have several widgets on the page, notably a page view tracker (for public view), a private Google Analytics tracker, and a Maps Among Us visitor map.
I examined the source code but there was nothing interesting. Then I decided to inspect the page, and, tada, I found two scripts in the header, added using document.write() or some other devious method.